adorned wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik are the 3 central characters within the renewed protests towards the Wrestling Federation of India president, who has been accused of sexual harassment and intimidation by way of the grapplers.
“A few wrestlers are sitting in protest at Jantar Mantar, I have spent 12 hours with them — seven hours on the first day and five hours the next day (in January). I had listened to all their grievances, held a press conference at 2-2.30 at night, formed a committee after talking to them.
“They had requested so as to add a member and gave Babita Phogat’s title, and we added her to the committee. There is not anything in our thoughts, we needed an unbiased probe,” Thakur said at a press conference.
“Whoever sought after to give their model ahead of the oversight committee, used to be given an opportunity to take action, there have been no restrictions. We even greater the timeline of the probe, there have been 14 conferences. Whoever sought after to return, got here. We gave an opportunity to each athlete to give their case.”
The grapplers resumed their protest at Jantar Mantar, demanding that an FIR be registered and a thorough probe be conducted by police against Sharan, a BJP MP from Gonda in Uttar Pradesh.
Thakur added, “The primary findings of the committee had been that an unbiased elections of WFI takes position, and until that point an ad-hoc committee takes over the affairs of WFI, and the elections will likely be held underneath 45 days.
“An internal complaints committee be formed to address any mental, sexual harassment complaint. Not just that, we have given the responsibility to IOA to look after all these matters, including selection of teams till the elections are held,” he mentioned.
“If anyone wants to file an FIR he or she can do that anywhere and it should not matter how old the case may be. Delhi Police said that they will conduct a preliminary inquiry and after that they will take the next step.”
The sports activities minister reiterated that the highest precedence of the BJP executive will all the time be sports activities and the well-being of sportspersons.
“Modi government is always with the athletes, and will always be there to promote sports and sportspersons,” Thakur mentioned.
“Our priority is sports and sportspersons and we will never compromise on that.”